


Adventures in Babysitting

by S_Horne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (He Gets One), Attempt at Humor, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Kid Peter Parker, Kid!Fic, M/M, Soft Uncle Bucky, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Horne/pseuds/S_Horne
Summary: Why the hell was Steve looking so calm about this? Bucky screamed at himself silently, trying to keep his freak out internal and his voice at a somewhat normal level. Steve was just leaning casually against the wall, acting as if he hadn’t just asked Bucky to drop into the middle of a HYDRA Base with no back up and one rifle.Okay, so he hadn’t quite asked Bucky to do that, but he had asked him to babysit his kid, Peter Stark-Rogers, on his own for the evening whilst Tony and Steve had a date-night. And to Bucky? That was kind of the same thing.At Bucky’s further protests, Peter looked at Bucky with huge, round eyes and pouted, his bottom lip jutting out impressively. “Don’t you wanna play with me, Uncle Buck?”Of course Steve had taught his kid how to pull the Stupid-Puppy-Dog-Eyes – and yes, that was a real thing. Add that expression to the patented Captain-America-Support-FaceTM on a tiny face with chubby cheeks and a forehead covered by tight brown curls and Bucky stood absolutely no chance in holding out for any sort of argument./Bucky babysits Peter for the first time on his own. There are cuddly toys, tears, cupcakes, and bedtime stories.





	Adventures in Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is overused, but it is very apt.
> 
> Thank you to two lovely betas!!! [BuckytheDucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckytheDucky/pseuds/BuckytheDucky) and [neverthelessthesun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverthelessthesun/pseuds/neverthelessthesun), you're awesome!
> 
> This is my version of soft!Uncle Bucky whom I love and adore and I hope you do too. (it's probably wrong of me to say I'm proud of this, but I actually am for once)

“What? No,” Bucky said with wide eyes. He looked frantically at Steve and shook his head manically. “No, no. I can’t look after him.”

_Why the hell was Steve looking so calm about this?_ Bucky screamed at himself silently, trying to keep his freak out internal and his voice at a somewhat normal level. Steve was just leaning casually against the wall, acting as if he hadn’t just asked Bucky to drop into the middle of a HYDRA Base with no back up and one rifle.

Okay, so he hadn’t quite asked Bucky to do _that_ , but he _had_ asked him to babysit his kid, Peter Stark-Rogers, on his own for the evening whilst Tony and Steve had a date-night. And to Bucky? That was kind of the same thing.

“Where’s Tash?” Bucky asked, swallowing the panic that he could feel bubbling up his throat, “she’s weirdly good with the midget. Or Clint or Bruce or…or, I don’t know, fucking DUM-E?”

“Please don’t swear in front of the kid,” Tony said as he as he walked into the room with Peter perched on his hip, his eyes rolling impressively at the ex-assassin.

“See!” Bucky cried and threw his arm out to Tony in a gesture that probably didn’t indicate anything at all, given the way that Steve’s calm expression didn’t change. “This is why you can’t leave me alone with a child. I am not okay with dealing with children; I don’t have experience for this shit.”

“Oh my God,” Tony muttered, “Robocop, what did I just say?”

Bucky winced and let his voice become somewhat of a whine with absolutely zero shame for that fact. “Where’s Pepper, or Happy? Fucking… I don’t know; Agent likes the kid, doesn’t he?”

At Bucky’s further protests, Peter looked at Bucky with huge, round eyes and pouted, his bottom lip jutting out impressively. “Don’t you wanna play with me, Uncle Buck?”

_Oh for fuck’s sake_ , Bucky groaned when Peter unleashed his secret weapon; that was just evil. Of course Steve had taught his kid how to pull the Stupid-Puppy-Dog-Eyes – and yes, that was a real thing. Add that expression to the patented Captain-America-Support-FaceTM on a tiny face with chubby cheeks and a forehead covered by tight brown curls and Bucky stood absolutely no chance in holding out for any sort of argument. All resolved crumbled and he felt his face soften into a smile as he looked over to his godson, and _Jesus,_ who would have thought he would ever be a _godfather_ to Steve’s kid. Or Howard Stark’s grandkid, for that matter – Christ, the modern world was fucking nuts. Bucky sighed and reached out with his flesh hand to poke Peter’s nose, loving the tiny squeal that left the kid at the touch.

“Of course I want to play with you, you little squirt.”

“Yay!” Peter clapped his hands together and smacked a kiss to Tony’s cheek. “Bye Daddy, bye Papa!” He struggled to be set down and as soon as Tony complied, he toddled over to Steve where he threw his arms around his papa’s legs in a tight hug before he ran off to his bedroom, head twisted over his shoulder to yell back to the men standing there watching him, “I’ll get my cars! Stay there, Uncle Buck!”

“Wow,” Tony said, blinking in shock at his whirlwind of a child. “My son’s affections are very easily swayed. Huh,” he hummed to himself and dropped his head to one side consideringly. “I should probably be a little more concerned with that, but that could be very useful information in future years.”

Bucky and Steve rolled their eyes in tandem at the other man, Bucky’s panic gone for a split second as he was too busy judging his brother-in-law. Steve pushed himself from the wall and walked over to his friend, clapping his hand onto Bucky’s shoulder when Bucky tilted his head to look over to him.

“You’re gonna be fine, Buck,” Steve promised, his ever-present smile widening slightly as he stared at Bucky with soft eyes. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I didn’t think you could do it. Anyway, you’ve never had a problem with Peter before.”

“I was never left alone with him before,” Bucky muttered in argument.

“Really?” Tony’s head shot around and he stared at Bucky in confusion, “this is the first time in three years you’ve been alone with him?”

Bucky could practically feel the daggers that Steve was throwing his husband with his eyes and stepped in quickly. “Well, yeah, on this scale. I’ve been alone with him, but this… this isn’t just supervising bath time; this is serious. I’m a goddamn assassin.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, mouth already hardening and eyes flashing dangerously as they always did when someone he loved was being hated on – even if that hate was coming from themselves – when Tony spoke first, his voice loud enough to stop Steve from butting in but soft and reassuring for Bucky at the same time.

“If I can do it, you can do it,” Tony said as he picked up his coat and started shrugging into it, as if it really were that simple. Bucky was pretty sure he wasn’t meant to notice the quick shake of his head that Tony sent over to Steve or the warning twitch of his lips. “Nobody would have thought I’d be any good with kids,” he continued as he looked back to Bucky as if nothing had happened, “and yet for some reason, Pete seems to like me.”

Steve rolled his eyes at his husband once again as he quickly walked over to him and helped Tony twist his arm out of the inside-out sleeve he was stuck in. “I knew you could do it,” Steve whispered as twisted Tony in his arms to press a quick kiss to his lips. “I had the utmost faith in you from the very first day.”

Something in Bucky melted a little as he watched the scene in front on him, but he couldn’t stop himself from calling out when the two men got lost in the moment. “Hey! That’s cute and all, but it doesn’t distract from my problems.”

Tony rolled his eyes – man, what was it about this house that brought that out in people – as he pulled out of Steve’s hold and turned to Bucky again. “Can you chill? Please? Peter is the most relaxed kid ever; just cuddle him,” Tony ignored the way that Bucky seemed to choke on air at that word, “and he’ll be fine. You’re not… _that_ anymore, Bucky; he is long gone, okay? There’s no one we trust more than the people on this team and that includes you. You’re gonna be fine.” Bucky swallowed at the seriousness of Tony’s words, an underlying emotion to them that he really wasn’t used to Tony portraying that often, but it was gone pretty quickly as Tony clapped his hands and stepped away where he began searching for his phone, couch cushions being pulled back and magazines shifted until Steve plucked it out of Tony’s back pocket with a huff of laughter.

“Anyway,” Tony continued as he pressed a quick kiss to Steve’s cheek in thanks, “JARVIS is gonna be here the whole time. He has direct links to our cells, all of the team, and any emergency numbers–”

“Emergency numbers?” Bucky cried, his eyes almost bulging out of his head as they darted between Steve and Tony. “What kind of emergency numbers?” _Fucking hell,_ kids were a big fucking deal and Bucky was so not prepared for this at all. Why did people do this to themselves? _Jesus_. “Steve, what the fu–”

“Language!”

Peter came stumbling back in to the living room just then with his arms full of toys and Bucky snapped his mouth shut with an audible click and shot a sheepish glance at his best friend. A few toy cars were falling out of Peter’s grip in a breadcrumb trail leading back to his bedroom as Peter waddled into the living room; his juggling act of a frankly alarming number of stuffed animals with what looked scarily like dressing-up clothes clearly wasn’t quite perfected yet. Steve smiled at the sight and winked over at Bucky as he followed Peter over to the couch.

“It looks like you’re going to have a busy night,” Steve muttered with a teasing smirk as he passed his friend, laughing loudly when Bucky discreetly flipped him off and crouching down into a squat by his son. Peter let himself be caught for a kiss as he set about placing down his toys in some sort of order that apparently made sense to him, but quickly squirmed out of Steve’s hold so that he could continue on his quest.

“Hey, Petey,” Tony called out from the door, “aren’t you going to come and give me a goodbye?”

“Bye!” Peter called, but he didn’t look back to his Dad as he quickly switched the order of a few stuffed animals, tongue peeking out in concentration as he furrowed his brow and squinted at the toys.

“Wounded,” Tony cried loudly, a hand flying to his head. “I have been scorned by my own son, my world. My own heart has forsaken me.”

Peter still didn’t care for his dad’s antics and merely gave a nod in satisfaction towards his line-up of animals before he turned to Bucky, eyes honing in on his new best friend and all but bolting across the room to take his hand – his metal hand, Bucky couldn’t help but notice – in his to drag him across the room. Bucky let himself be pulled and went to sit down on the couch when Peter tugged on Bucky’s sweatshirt until the man dropped to the floor. Bucky looked up at his friends with a panicked look on his face as Peter inched closer and closer until the child was practically sitting on his lap, concentration clear in his expression as he focused on looking at toy after toy after toy in extreme detail until he decided which to show Bucky first. Just as he opened his mouth to call to Steve, something was shoved into Bucky’s face and there was a little poke in his side that continued until Bucky broke eye contact with Steve and looked down to Peter, anticipation clear on the boy’s face.

Bucky cleared his throat and reached out slowly to take the offered toy, a very realistic stuffed version of the Hulk, in his hand. “Wow,” he said after a moment, when Peter’s expression only got more expectant, “that’s cool?”

It was obviously the right thing to say as Peter’s entire face lit up into a beam and he bounced excitedly by Bucky’s side, bony knees digging into Bucky’s legs. “He’s super cool,” Peter agreed as he turned to grab something else. “He’s big and green and he helps save people even though he could be super scary instead.”

Bucky sent one last look to Steve, but his traitorous best friend only smiled fondly at the two of them and quietly asked JARVIS to call the elevator, pushing his husband out of the Tower with a reassuring and far-too-proud beam that made Bucky’s stomach do something complicated.

“Uncle Buck, look at this one!”

/

Bucky was standing at the counter chopping tomatoes for their pasta **–** it had been Peter’s request for ‘pasgetti’ with the ‘red sauce’ – when he felt something suddenly hit his metal arm. He jolted violently and whipped around as his hand flew to his side as if to pull out a weapon from his hip, but he forced himself to calm down and to not overreact; there was a child in the house, after all. It was nothing. It wasn’t a threat, it _couldn’t_ be a threat, he repeated over and over in his head. JARVIS would have told him if there was any danger to Peter or to himself.

Unless JARVIS had been compromised?

No.

Bucky cut that train of thought off before it could start and he took a deep breath. He cast a quick glance around the room and saw the familiar lights of JARVIS’s cameras flashing reassuringly. His heart began to slow down to a regular speed. JARVIS was still working and Peter was fine. Bucky sent another look around the room, a little more intently this time, but when he still didn’t see anything out of the ordinary he turned back to his task. What the hell was he even doing with this? He didn’t know how to make a pasta sauce, for fuck’s sake. He could barely make _toast_.

Deep in his musings, Bucky nearly shot out of his skin when he heard a loud ting and felt something hit his arm for a second time. This time he whirled around in time to see a blur of colour dash around the corner of the breakfast bar. Bucky felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips and made a big show of turning back to his cooking, relief flooding his body and something very close to laughter bubbling in his chest.

By the third time, Bucky was ready for the clang on his arm and turned around to see Peter’s face peeking around the edge of the breakfast bar. When Peter noticed that he was being watched he let out a loud squeal and ducked back into hiding, although his childish giggles gave away his position immediately as they echoed around the kitchen, a gorgeous sound that Bucky wanted to bottle up.

Bucky smiled as he felt the last of the tension leave him now that he knew what was happening and he twisted his head ever so slightly to see what it was that had hit his arm. He stared down in utter surprise at the fridge magnets that Peter had somehow managed to stick on his arm. There were three of them, all in a row. Bucky lifted a finger and traced the outlines of them; the Captain America shield, an Iron Man helmet and a pretty good remake of Thor’s hammer out of clay and glitter – no doubt the kid’s work. Of course Pete had gone for the Avengers magnets; Peter had an obsession with all things superhero for as long as Bucky had known him and the tower was decorated accordingly. Bucky continued to gaze down at the things on his arm in wonder; how on earth had Peter gotten close enough to him without Bucky noticing?

Bucky was suddenly struck by an incredulous thought; why the hell had Peter even wanted to get close enough to his arm? The kid should have been terrified – did he not know what this arm had done? Peter should have been running and screaming in the opposite direction, not edging closer and closer to stick _magnets_ to it.

Also, more to the point, why the hell was his arm magnetic? That just seemed like a recipe for disaster – Tony’s idea of a joke; Bucky knew it was. It was just like the genius to make magnets which were designed to stick to Bucky’s arm and Bucky’s arm only, which had also been designed by Tony.

“Come out here, squirt,” Bucky said with a shake his head and a roll of his eyes even as he let out a weak laugh, “your pasgetti is done.”

Peter crawled out from his hiding place with his hands cupped over his mouth, giggles still sounding despite him trying to hold them in as he lifted himself up to the table.

 

The magnets stayed on Bucky’s arm for the rest of the night.

/

“Peter,” Bucky started, “what color frosting do you want?” Bucky turned around with two tubs of different coloured frosting in his hands and looked up from them to see that the kitchen was empty. “Peter?” Bucky called out.

He set the containers down on the counter and stepped into the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. When he saw no sign of the little boy in the lounge either he called out again and when he got no response he began to panic a little, sweat collecting at the base of his neck. How the hell could he have lost Peter? Oh God, Steve was going to kill him. He was actually going to kill him _dead_. And actually, really dead this time, not just missing and presumed to be. How could he have done this? How had someone slipped through the security of the Avengers Tower, past JARVIS, past Bucky himself?

He was the worst person in the world. The actual worst. Bucky had _said_ that he wasn’t to be trusted, had told everyone that he shouldn’t have been left alone with a child. And, God, it was _Peter._ The best damn kid in the world.

He was going to have to tell Steve that he lost his child… _Steve_ , oh fuck. This wasn’t happening. Bucky’s breath began to come a little quicker, his chest heaving a little too fast to be comfortable as his body flushed. Who the hell had deemed it okay to leave him with a fucking child? Bucky was recovering, very well and relatively quickly considering everything that had happened to him, but he was _recovering._ He was better from his time as the world’s leading _assassin,_ but he still had his days where the memories got too much for him and he shut down. He wasn’t good enough to be looking after children, that much was apparently fucking obvious. Because now the kid was missing.

The cutest little shit who was full of nothing but life and laughter. The brightest squirt that was now _missing,_ who was… Apparently he was barrelling into Bucky’s legs?

“What?” Bucky almost shouted as he looked down to see Peter looking up at him from between his knees.

“Hi!”

“ _Hi_?” Bucky practically yelled, his fear turning to anger and confusion now that the danger was apparently gone, “Peter, where have you been?”

Peter’s eyes welled with tears and he took a step back as he released his hold on Bucky like the man was suddenly electrifying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered pitifully and Bucky faltered. He wasn’t sure what to do in this sort of situation; he didn’t do tears and he didn’t do children, add the two together and he was really screwed. Ah, _fuck_. Bucky reached out for Peter, but when the child’s posture didn’t change, he dropped down to one knee and pulled Peter into a hug.

“Oh no, kid,” he muttered lowly. He stroked his flesh hand over the child’s unruly hair as he rubbed his back with the metal one, focusing insanely hard on not putting too much pressure behind the embrace. God, kids were small. So small and so breakable and he could not deal with this. “Don’t cry, Pete,” he tried to soothe, though he wasn’t sure how much of a comfort he was. He was a fucking assassin, not a babysitter and he was just proving himself right time and time again. “You’re not in trouble, kid. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Peter clutched at Bucky as he sniffed into his shoulder. “Don’ be mad at me, Uncle Buck.”

Bucky sighed. God, he was such a shit; he made the cutest kid in the world cry. He pulled back a little and held Peter’s face in his hands, still a little unnerved at just how tiny the kid was compared to him, and stroked away the few tears that had fallen. “I’m not mad at you, kiddo, I promise. I was just scared when I didn’t see or hear you; you’re not in any trouble.”

“I was jus’ getting Buck,” Peter said with a little pout, though his tears were drying up quickly at his godfather’s reassurance.

“Buck?”

Peter thrust a stuffed bear into Bucky’s face which caused the man to pull back with a grimace, blinking a couple of times to readjust his vision. When he did it was to see a small brown teddy bear wearing a dark uniform and an eye mask with one of its arms wrapped with a shiny silver material. It looked eerily like Bucky’s arm and... Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with that. He had seen the ‘Bucky Bears’ of the 1940s, but those were… Well, they weren’t a mock-up of an assassin, for a start.

“Buck Bear!” Peter cried in delight, all tears gone now. And ah, that explained that, Bucky thought with a wry chuckle to himself; Peter wasn’t just a child of Tony Stark, he was a child of Steve Rogers too, and Steven Grant Rogers had the best crocodile tears in the world. No one ever suspected the blond and innocence to be anything but a façade, but Bucky knew the truth. Steve had always been the one to get them out of trouble with wide eyes and a wobbling bottom lip until they were away from whoever had been scolding them and he dropped the act immediately. “Papa made him for me!” Peter was carrying on; smile bright and the bear held in his arms like it was precious gold, “he’s my bestestest favourite!”

Bucky cleared his throat before he spoke again, a wave of emotion hitting him all at once which he didn’t want to think about right now. “Your bestest favourite?”

“No,” Peter said, drawing out the vowel and giving Bucky a look as if to suggest that he was the stupidest person in the world that was quite alarming on a child as tiny as Peter, “my bestest _est_ favourite.” He punctuated the words with a kiss to the top of his bear’s head and Bucky couldn’t held his fond smile from spreading across his face.

“Oh, I am sorry,” Bucky hurried to say, “your bestest- _bestest_. That’s high praise indeed. What else is your best favourite?”

Peter smacked a kiss to the real Bucky’s cheek. “You’re my bestest favourite Uncle.”

“Not the bestestest?”

“Well, not now. Uncle Thor took me flying las’ week and Uncle Clint gave me _two biscuits_ when we watched Tangled on Tuesday.”

“Wow,” Bucky began with exaggerated amazement, despite having lost track of the conversation, “Two whole biscuits?” When Peter nodded so enthusiastically it looked as though his head would fall off, Bucky twisted his expression into something very thoughtful and tapped a finger against his chin as though he was coming to a huge decision.

“Well,” he began slowly, “I don’t have two _biscuits_ and I can’t take you flying, but I do have some cupcakes that are ready to be frosted in the kitchen if that will bump me up?”

“Yay!” Peter squealed and threw his arms into the air. He ran into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway when he noticed that Bucky hadn’t moved, arms beckoning him hurriedly. “Come on, Uncle Buck, you won’t be my bestestest if you don’t move!”

/

“ _Hey, Buck_.” Bucky startled when he heard Steve’s voice and he whirled around, somehow expecting to see Steve behind him until he heard JARVIS’s voice speak out, loud and clear.

“I rang Captain Rogers for you, Sergeant Barnes,” the AI informed Bucky, “your heart rate was accelerating at a rapid speed and when I called your name you didn’t respond.”

“ _Are you okay_?” Steve asked, when Bucky still hadn’t said anything.

“What?” Bucky snapped back to attention at his friend’s voice. “Oh, yeah. Stevie, I’m fine.”

“ _JARVIS said you were panicking_?” Steve’s voice was so gentle, so relaxing without pushing or trying too hard, but Bucky found himself glaring across at the nearest of JARVIS’s cameras.

“I’m fine,” he reassured his friend before his voice dropped to something darker. “There was no need for that snitch to call you.”

“ _Are you sure_?” Steve asked, ignoring Bucky’s denials, “ _I know it was a lot to ask for you to do this and I don’t want you to–_ ”

“Stevie, stop,” Bucky cut in quickly, “I’m fine, I promise.”

“ _Yeah_?”

“Yeah,” Bucky promised again, a smile creeping into his voice, “I just had a moment.”

“ _A moment like you forgot that kids weren’t adults?_ ” Steve started hesitantly, “ _Or a moment like you forgot that you weren’t_ –”

Bucky interrupted his friend before he could finish that thought, but his words came out in nothing more than a rushed jumble.

There was a long pause before Steve spoke again, his voice coloured with amusement. “ _Sorry, Buck, but I didn’t quite catch that. Care to repeat it_?”

“I said that,” Bucky started before he stopped and sighed. He argued with himself for a second before he decided that it was best to just come clean with his friends. The incident had been almost two hours ago and Bucky was still a little shaken, clearly. He took another deep breath before he continued resignedly, “I lost Peter.”

“ _You lost Peter_?” And that was Tony’s voice, loud and shrill down the receiver and Bucky wanted to cry.

“Just for a moment,” Bucky told him quickly, wishing his voice was a little stronger and less shaky, “and I didn’t really. I just, I thought – he was in his room.”

“ _What_?”

“I just had a momentary panic, not a full on… It was earlier anyway. It wasn’t just now. Peter’s fine I promise, he’s fine; he’s just brushing his teeth in the bathroom. We decorated cupcakes and I made him pasta. I didn’t, Steve, I swear. I can do this, please. I just had a moment I–”

“ _Hey,_ ” Steve cut in before Bucky could work himself into another panic, “ _I know you can, Buck_.”

“Yeah?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Steve promised him _. “Kids are hard work even when you do it every day. And anyway, Tony’s lost Peter a bunch of times_.”

“ _Steve!_ ” Tony hissed. Bucky couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at Tony’s indignant cry and the accompanying swat that he heard where he assumed Tony had smacked Steve on the arm.

“ _What? It’s true!_ ” Bucky heard Steve retort.

“ _Date night is over. We’re coming home_.”

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Steve sighed exasperatedly at his husband’s dramatics and Bucky chuckled again, a smile on his face and suddenly he felt a lot more relaxed that he had before the call had begun.

“We’re fine,” Bucky cut in, “I promise. Stay and enjoy the rest of your night. I’m sorry for interrupting.”

“ _You didn’t interrupt, stupid_ ,” Tony said and Bucky could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

“Aw, doll,” Bucky said in an exaggerated drawl, “you say the sweetest things.”

“Uncle Buck! Uncle Buck, come! You gots to read me my story now.”

Bucky opened his mouth to call back to the little boy when Tony started talking again. “ _Is that Peter? Put him on, please! Let me say_ –”

“Nope,” Bucky said loudly and cut off the other man’s pleading. If Tony got on the phone he would never get off and then Peter would never sleep, that Bucky knew for certain. Those two were as thick as thieves and the adoration went both ways. “I’m going to put Peter to bed and you two will stay exactly where you are and enjoy the rest of your date. Goodnight!”

/

“Uncle Buck! Uncle Buck!”

Bucky smiled at the voice calling his name, excitement clearly heard despite the tired slur to the words. He walked down the corridor until he reached the little boy’s room where he pushed open the door with a smile.

“What are you still doing up?” Bucky asked with a little tease in his tone as he took in Peter sitting up in his bed, back resting against his pillows as he bounced excitedly and held out a colourful storybook towards Bucky, “aren’t you supposed to be asleep by now?”

“Not yet,” Peter told him and thrust the book more insistently in front of him, “I gotta have a story first.”

“A story?” Bucky made a show of stepping back and scratching his head, “no one said ever said anything about reading you a story.”

Peter’s face dropped and his arms faltered, book dropping down to the covers as he pouted up at Bucky. “You ain’t gonna read me a story? But I cleaned my teeth and put my pjs on all by myself!”

Bucky hid his smile until he was in the room and dropping down next to Peter on the bed, his weight causing the little boy to bounce with the mattress. “Of course I’m gonna read you a story, you silly little thing.”

As Bucky was sorting himself out on the small bed, Peter began to chatter away happily, words jumping from one conversation to another rapidly. “I picked out my Iron Man pyjamas; d’ya like them? They’ve got Iron Mans all over them, see?” Peter rolled over slightly to proudly show off the back of his top, which did indeed have little Iron Man helmets all over it. “And then JARVIS helped me do the taps so I could do my teeth - which I did! All on my own, Uncle Buck, just like Papa showed me.”

Bucky grinned down at Peter and reached out to tweak his nose. “I’m sure your Papa will be very proud to hear that when he gets home.”

“Will you tell him?”

“Course I’ll tell him,” Bucky replied easily and with that confirmation, Peter was talking again.

“‘Cause Papa says if I can do all that on my own then I’m a big boy and that I get to pick my own story for Daddy to read to me, see? So I did it and now I get my story!”

“You do indeed,” Bucky said in amusement. He dropped his gaze to the floor by the bed and the grin dropped off his face as he stared in horror at the books that littered the carpet there. “Now, which one of these hundreds of books do ya want?”

“This one!” Peter cried as he picked up his already-carefully selected book again and all but threw it against Bucky. Bucky grunted as it collided with his ribcage but dutifully picked it up, grinning down at Peter as he took in the book’s colourful cover.

“ _I Love You, Blue Kangaroo?_ What’s this about then?”

“It’s my favourite one, Uncle Buck. Can you read it? Please?”

“‘Course I can, squirt. Snuggle down.” Bucky froze when Peter took that to mean ‘get as close to Bucky as you possibly can’ as the child lifted Bucky’s metal arm to cuddle underneath it, pulling it down over his shoulders as though it was the softest blanket he’d ever felt. When Bucky didn’t move an inch, Peter looked up at him and tapped the book impatiently.

“You hafta open it if you wanna read it,” he stage-whispered before he burst into peals of laughter when Bucky dug his fingers into his sides gently, tickling him and  rubbing his stubble against Peter’s soft cheeks.

“Okay then,” Bucky started as he eased off to let Peter settle back down and opened the book to the first bright page. “ _Blue Kangaroo belonged to Lilly; he was her very own kangaroo. Every night Lilly said ‘I love you, Blue Kangaroo’_.”

Peter’s breathing had evened out before Bucky had even gotten halfway through the book, but the man carried on reading until the end, just in case. He had forgotten what it was like to have a child in his arms, so totally at peace with each other, but he loved it. He had always loved babysitting as a young boy; he’d found it an easy way to get some extra pocket money. But that was a long time ago, he reminded himself. That had been 70 years ago, long before the war, HYDRA, a metal arm. Bucky wasn’t himself anymore.

As Bucky lifted his arm and slipped out from underneath Peter, slowly lowering the little boy down to the mattress with a care he surprised even himself with, the child stirred.

“Love you, Uncle Buck,” came a tiny voice, quiet and slurred into his pillow.

Oh.

Man, had it been a long time since someone had said that to him. Sure, Steve said it to Bucky all the time, but that was _Steve._ And Tony sometimes, but he joked around all the time. This…

Well, this _wasn’t_ Steve.  This was an innocent child. Someone who hadn’t known him back then and wasn’t waiting for him to return to how he had been before everything. Someone who hadn’t seen what he had done, who didn’t think he was a monster.

Peter was different; a baby who could love unconditionally and he had chosen _Bucky._

“Love you too, squirt.”

“‘m not squirt,” Peter murmured lowly and Bucky smiled. He bent down next to Peter’s bed and carefully stroked a finger down his cheek.

“Of course you’re not,” Bucky whispered, “goodnight, Peter.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I post things on [tumblr](http://s-horne.tumblr.com/)


End file.
